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The Politicisation of Popobawa: Changing Explanations of a Collective Panic in Zanzibar

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The Politicisation of Popobawa: Changing Explanations of a Collective Panic in Zanzibar See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272202097 The politicisation of Popobawa: changing explanations of a collective panic in Zanzibar Article · January 2009 CITATIONS READS 13 491 1 author: Martin Walsh Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology 91 PUBLICATIONS 382 CITATIONS SEE PROFILE Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects: Populism and its consequences for international development View project The anthropology and politics of conservation in Zanzibar View project All content following this page was uploaded by Martin Walsh on 14 February 2015. The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file. M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33 The Politicisation of Popobawa: Changing Explanations of a Collective Panic in Zanzibar Martin Walsh [email protected] University of Cambridge Abstract One of the most remarkable features of recent Zanzibar history has been the occurrence of periodic episodes of collective panic associated with fear of a spiritual entity called Popobawa. The first and most widespread of the modern panics took place in 1995, spreading from Pemba to Unguja and across to the mainland coast. This was in the months before Tanzania’s first multiparty elections, and many Zanzibaris, in particular opponents of the ruling party, settled on a political reading of Popobawa’s rude intrusion into their lives. Subsequent panics have been similarly interpreted, and external observers have also been influenced by these politicised understandings of Popobawa. This paper examines the development of the 1995 panic, and shows that different local explanations for the crisis were put forward before the political interpretation came to the fore. But there is also evidence to suggest that political history and collective memory have played an important part in shaping the content of Popobawa narratives, and the paper concludes by highlighting this. 1.0 Introduction In the first half of 1995 an extraordinary collective panic swept across the Zanzibar archipelago. It started on the island of Pemba and later spread from there to Unguja and Zanzibar town. Men, women and children described being assaulted by a shape-shifting spirit, Popobawa, and on the larger island reports were rife that adults of both sexes had been sodomised by this malevolent entity. In order to avert its nocturnal attacks many people resorted to spending the night huddled together in anxious groups outside of their homes. On both islands the panic produced incidents of collective violence, when strangers suspected of being manifestations of Popobawa were attacked, beaten, and in some cases killed by the angry mob. Government efforts to calm things down were largely ineffectual, not least because most Pembans and supporters of the opposition Civic United Front (CUF) believed that the ruling CCM (Chama cha Mapinduzi) party was itself responsible for bringing Popobawa to the islands in order to divert attention away from politics in the run-up to the country’s first multiparty elections in October 1995. In this paper, based primarily on ethnographic research undertaken in Zanzibar, I will outline both the evolution of the 1995 panic and the development of different local explanations for the spiritual assaults which caused it. When these assaults proliferated on Pemba people struggled to understand why this was happening, and initially a number of different explanations were put forward, none of them overtly political. As local accounts make clear, the political interpretation of Popobawa’s brute intrusion into island life took time to develop. It subsequently came to dominate, particularly on Pemba and among CUF supporters. And although apolitical interpretations of Popobawa’s evil deeds can still be heard in Zanzibar, especially on Unguja island, external commentators continue to reiterate the view that the 1995 panic and others like it are inextricably linked to the political process, reflecting the deep and enduring divisions in Zanzibari society and the anxieties that they generate. This may be so, but a closer examination of the events of 1995 suggests that this cannot simply be asserted on the basis of one set of local interpretations and the coincidence of timing between some Popobawa panics and political elections. 2.0 The political context Before examining the 1995 panic in detail, let me outline the broader political and historical context in which this and related episodes have taken place. Zanzibar has been through a series of colonialisms, 23 © JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079 M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33 Portuguese, Omani Arab, and British, and is now a semi-autonomous territory within the United Republic of Tanzania. The British abolished slavery but retained the sultanate that had built its success on the back of slave trading and slave labour. When the British departed they handed power over to an Arab- dominated government which was overthrown the following month in a bloody revolution, the defining event of Zanzibar’s modern history. Zanzibar became a quasi-socialist state ruled by President Abeid Amani Karume and his Afro-Shirazi Party, originally named for the islands’ mixed indigenous and ex- mainland (including ex-slave) population. Shortly after the Revolution Karume agreed to the union of Zanzibar with Nyerere’s Tanganyika, establishing what some Zanzibaris see as colonialism. But Karume and his immediate successors retained a tight grip on the internal affairs of Zanzibar. The islands remained largely closed to outsiders (including foreign researchers) until economic liberalisation began to take effect and the government started to welcome significant numbers of western aid workers and tourists in the 1990s. Zanzibar’s economic and political transition has, however, been a troubled one, and the islands remain deeply divided between supporters of CCM, the “Revolutionary Party” that has ruled all of Tanzania since the one-party era, and CUF, which dominates Pemban politics and is now the nation’s main opposition party. Published sources make muddled reference to different episodes of diabolical terror and panic in post- Revolutionary Zanzibar. There have been at least five Popobawa panics, the most widespread of which was the 1995 episode described in this paper, others rather more localised. Table 1 shows these panics in the context of other notable events in the recent political history of Zanzibar. Table 1: Popobawa panics in historical context mid-19th century heyday of Omani Arab rule 1890 British Protectorate declared 1897 slavery abolished 10 December 1963 independence from the British 12 January 1964 Zanzibar Revolution 26 April 1964 Union with Tanganyika to form Tanzania Late 1960s or early 1970s? first Popobawa panic on Pemba 7 April 1972 President Karume assassinated 1984 economic liberalisation begun 1992 multiparty politics introduced February-May 1995 major Popobawa panic on both islands (with episodes also in Dar es Salaam and other mainland towns) 22 October 1995 first nationwide multiparty elections 9 June 1999 Commonwealth-brokered accord (‘Muafaka’) October 2000 minor Popobawa panic on Pemba 29 October 2000 second multiparty elections 27 January 2001 mass protests and violence July 2001 minor Popobawa panic on both islands 10 October 2001 second ‘Muafaka’ accord between CCM and CUF 30 October 2005 third multiparty elections February-March 2007 minor Popobawa panic on Unguja (and in Dar) 3.0 The development of the 1995 panic In early February 1995, during the first week of Ramadhan, the Muslim month of fasting, men and women in and around the southern Pemban port town of Mkoani began to complain of nocturnal spiritual assaults. The culprit was subsequently identified as a spirit (Swahili sheitani ) and given the name Popobawa, a label which people remembered from a similar panic in the years following the Revolution. 24 © JH, The University of Dodoma ISSN 1821-7079 M. Walsh. Journal of Humanities (JH), Volume 1(1) 2009, 23-33 A typical assault involved someone waking in the night to find themselves being attacked by an amorphous or shape-shifting intruder, which was most frequently described as “pressing” or “crushing” their chest and ribs, and of suffocating them until they had difficulty in breathing and passed out. Other unusual events might precede or accompany or perhaps replace this standard experience: including strange sights, sounds, smells and other sensations. Sometimes the victims were children, subjected to the kinds of abuse that westerners might associate with a poltergeist. In general all of the victims experienced extreme terror, and were often frozen speechless when they were assaulted. Their plight might be recognised by their sleeping partners, who might also be attacked in turn. This happened to people who did not ordinarily have possessory spirits as well as those who did. 1 However, household members and neighbours who did have possessory spirits were liable to go into trance when Popobawa was about, and when they did so their spirits would identify and challenge Popobawa and cry out to alert others of the intruder’s presence. The general scene was often one of pandemonium breaking out until Popobawa moved on. The spirit or spirits (pl. mapopobawa ) might attack many homes simultaneously, in the same or different parts of the town or countryside. Table 2: Chronology of the 1995 panic Pemba 2
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